Confirmation

Is it time for us to completely rethink how we do confirmation? What we do here on Wednesday nights is an exciting change from classroom lecture and test model that I went through as a teenager. I think we're doing some good things with our current confirmation. The problem, as I see it, is that it is still too structured, too one-size-fits-all. What we are essentially saying is that if you sit through these 45 classes (or whatever it is) you will be ready to profess your faith.

I believe faith development is more organic than that. I have met third graders who are very ready to affirm their baptism and I have met tenth graders that still aren't ready. I think it's time for us to stop thinking about faith development as simply a middle school thing and stat thinking of it as a life long way of life. I would like to suggest that if we are going to take the promises of confirmation seriously and not turn it into a complete farce, then we need to start thinking about things differently. We need to development a way to make it possible for a person to publicly profess that they now desire to live out the promises made on their behalf in their baptism whether they are 13 or 31.

Perhaps I will leave my thoughts there and let you chew on them a bit. In the days ahead I will share a few more thoughts, including a proposal that's been rattling around in my head.